The Remains of an Aboriginal Encampment at Rehoboth Delaware, a Paper Read Before the Society, February 5th, 1880

The Numismatic and Anticjuarian
Society of Philadelphia.

THE REMAINS

uK AN

Aboriginal Encampment

AT

REHOBOTH DELAWARE

A PAPER

READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY FEBRUARY ^th iSSo

FRANCIS JORDAN Jr

PHILADELPHIA

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY

1880

The Remains of an Aboriginal
Encampment at Rehoboth
Delaware

Mr. President and Members of the Society : —

I have the pleasure of submitting to the society some notes
of an examination of the remains of an aboriginal encampment
at Rehoboth, a watering-place on the coast of Delaware, five
miles south of the venerable town of Lewes, about 130 miles
from Philadelphia, and nineteen miles from Cape May, from
which it lies diagonally opposite.

Twenty-one years have elapsed since my first visit to this
interesting spot, and, although I have made several subsequent
visits, the only favorable opportunity of making a careful
investigation occurred during the summer of 1879.

Twelve years ago there was no visible habitation within five
miles of it, unless we except a rough plank shed erected by
the fraternity of sportsmen as a shelter during the autumn
shooting season. Since then a veritable city by the sea has
sprung up, almost in a night, and bids fair to outstrip many of
its older and better known rivals.

Directly in the rear of what is now called Rehoboth Beach,
and distant from the sea not over five hundred feet, stretch out
these interesting remains, than which, so far as I have been
able to ascertain, no similar example of an encampment pos-
sessing the same archaeological value exists on the Atlantic
seaboard ; and these features have been preserved by reason of
its comparative inaccessibility and remoteness from the haunts
of men combined with remarkable natural defenses. As com-
pared with other similarly situated localities, the topographical
changes have been trivial, and, if any, have been produced by
the winter gales and not by the sea, as the ocean currents that

9.

set in along this part of Delaware are known to have main-
tained their one unvaried course north and south for almost a
century, and thus prevented any encroachments upon the
coast line. The tremendous force of these winds is evidenced
by an immense sand dune that has been blown up between the
cape and Lewes, and which annually recedes inward several
inches, burying in its course great pines, whose withered tops
emerge from the apex in a long line, like so many spectres of
a departed race.

I have not discovered any records of the existence of an
encampment at Rehoboth, either in the Historical Society of
Delaware or in the histories of the early settlements of that
State, by which to form some estimate of its antiquity, but
from the evidences to be adduced it is probable its establish-
ment antedated the arrival of the whites many years, perhaps
many centuries.

We know that in April, 1638, the ship of war Key of
Calmar entered the mouth of the Delaware bearing the first
colony of Swedish settlers to the New World, under the
leadership of Peter Menewe. As narrated by Acrelius, they
made their first landing on the western side of the river, at a
place called by them Paradise Point, in the neighborhood of
what is now Lewes, and immediately purchased land from the
Indians, embracing a tract of country from Cape Henlopen to
the falls called Santickau (Trenton Falls), and all the country
inland. The Swedish historian does not mention any extensive
Indian settlement in the vicinity.

The present dimensions of the encampment are, in length,
three-quarters of a mile, running in a direct line north and
south, parallel with and, as I have said, distant from the ocean
some four or five hundred feet, and protected from it by a sand
bluff rising six or eight feet above high-water mark, and ex-
tending from Rehoboth Beach to Cape Henlopen. The width
of the encampment varies from one hundred to five hundred
feet. A ridge of sand-hills intersects its length, dividing it
into nearly equal parts, and as the southern section is on a
higher plane, the two form what might be called an upper and
a lower encampment.

Lying a quarter of a mile south stretches out the famous

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Rehoboth Bay, once the habitation of clams and oysters, and
wliose shallow waters still teem with a great variety of fish
and myriads of hard and shedder crabs. Skirting a portion of
the westerly boundary we behold one of those phenomenal
freaks of nature rarely met with on our coast, namely, three
lakes whose waters are perfectly fresh and clear as any in our
northern latitudes, although within a few hundred feet of the
salt sea. The largest covers some fifty acres of land and has
a mean depth of five feet. The quantity of water in each
remains nearly the same in all seasons, the constant exhaustion
from evaporation being supplied by hidden springs.

In selecting this spot as the site for an encampment the
Indians displayed a keen appreciation of its unsurpassed natu-
ral advantages. It was simply an elysium. Here they had
every comfort their savage natures could wish for. Game, fish
and oyster in abundance and easily obtained. An inexhaust-
ible supply of fresh water at their very threshold, and the adja-
cent forest of white oak harbored the deer and bear, furnished
them with fuel and lumber to construct their sea canoe.

Hither for many centuries they annually came to escape the
enervating heat of the inland villages, and probably remained
far into the autumn, or until the geese and ducks, with which
the bay and lakes are stocked at this period, deserted those
placid waters for a warmer climate. Hence it is that I call
this an encampment, in contradistinction to their permanent
abiding places. The evidences of their sojourn — their domestic
habits — are many, and even to the unscientific observer are
unmistakable in the conclusions they point to. The character
of the ground is in itself a revelation, and contributes to the
belief that its level and compact] surface — almost as solid as a
macadamized road, whereon no vegetable growth is visible —
is not entirely the result of nature’s handiwork, but that the
foot of man assisted in producing it. It seems to have been
so pounded down by the tread of the succe.ssive generations
of its periodical visitors that vegetation is rendered impossible,
whereas one step across its limits brings you to a luxuriant
growth of heather and such other grasses as usually flourish
contiguous to the sea in this latitude, and springing from a
soil into which the feet sink several inches.

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The inference is that the ground was prepared for the pur-
poses of an encampment, and I doubt if even the most skep-
tical theorist could fail to recognize the force of these deduc-
tions. Scattered throughout its precincts at irregular intervals
are the remains of several hundreds of what I shall call
camp-fires — small conical elevations composed of clam, oyster
and mussel shells mingled with charcoal. The.se mounds
vary in size and in seeming entirety. Some appear to have
SLicce.ssfully resisted the force of the elements and retained
their original form almost intact, whilst others have par-
tially succumbed to the wash of the winter tides that have occa-
sionally gained access through apertures in the sand-bluffs
and submerged a part of the surface. There are still
others that have been entirely effaced from the same
cause, and their positions are only distinguishable by
the chalky appearance of the ground and the presence of
myriads of broken shell that have bleached by centuries of
exposure. In other localities where artificial shell heaps have
been found, they have consisted of several large mounds,
showing they were the accumulations of what we would popu-
larly call “ clam bakes,” where the Indians repaired for a brief
period for the express purpose of enjoying the succulent
bivalves. One or two such mounds are to be seen on the flat.s^
which separate Lewes from the sea, and during the years 1865
and 1866 were casually examined by Professor Joseph Leidy,
and described in the proceedings of the Academy of Natural
Sciences.

At the Rehoboth encampment there are no large mounds,
and presumably never have been, as the number and positions
of those extant preclude such a supposition.

The positive evidence of their origin is found in the fact
that in the immediate vicinity, as well as mingled with the
mollusks, are fragments of pottery in large quantities, celts,
arrow heads, and a variety of other stone implements and
ornaments ; the bones of animals and many pieces of calcined
stone, that once played an important part in the construction
of their long since extinct fire-places. Indeed, in almost every
stone picked up within the confines of the camp-ground can
be traced the fragment of an implement of domestic use, the

chase, or war. It should be borne in mind that stones are not
an indigenous product of this part of Delaware, and, further,
it has been asserted, perhaps a little ironically, that none are to
be found within the boundary of Sussex County larger than
an ordinary pebble.

Fragments of pottery are found in more or less quantities
in all the mounds, and, notwithstanding the sherds are small,
— the largest smaller than a man’s hand, — they enable us to
determine, with some degree of accuracy, the size and form of
the vessel of which they originally formed a part. When we
consider the early settlement of this portion of the country,
and the knowledge we have that the Indians abandoned many
of their primitive forms of domestic economy immediately upon
coming in contact with the whites, — from whom they obtained
utensils of iron, — we have reason to believe that these speci-
mens are among the earliest types of aboriginal ceramic art,
although they are identical with those found in other localities.
The style of ornamentation is of the plainest description, and
is confined to the incised lines running parallel with the rim of the
pot, varying in number in accordance with the size, or the taste
of the potter — some having as many as twelve lines and others
only five and six. The exterior of all the larger and rougher
fragments have the corrugated surface so often seen on Indian
earthenware, and popularly supposed to have been executed
with that primitive stylus, the corn-cob. That this belief had
not been entirely relinquished, even by so eminent an archae-
ologist as Professor Charles Ran, of the Smithsonian, is
evidenced by his letter addressed to me under date of August
13, 1879, in which he states his intention to operate with corn-
cobs upon wet clay, and promising to apprise me of the result
of his experiments. This he did in a letter dated November
27, last, as follows : —

“A short time after I had written to you I experimented
with corn-cobs on wet clay, and obtained very ornamental im-
pressions, which, however, are unlike any marks I have seen
on Indian pottery. I used, —

“ I. A corn-cob with the grains in it.

“ 2. One without them.

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“ 3- without them, making impressions in different

directions.

“After these trials, I have arrived at the conclusion that
the Indians made no use of corn-cobs for ornamenting their
pottery.”

The most valuable specimen in my small collection is an
almost perfect example of a celt. This interesting relic was exca-
vated from a shell heap, where it had evidently been deposited
for the purpose of concealment, and that part of its pointed
end which bears the traces of exposure to the atmosphere
protruded an inch above the ground. It measures about seven
inches long by two and a half broad, is conical in shape, flatter
on one side than on the other, and has a well-wrought cutting
edge, whence the lines of the implement taper gracefully back
to a blunt point. There is just sufficient polish remaining
upon its pecked surface to show that it had once been covered
with it. In one feature this specimen is unique, in that on its
flattened side it has a carefully drilled depression for the thumb.

Hammer stones are found in comparative abundance in all
parts of the ground, and are recognized by the finger-pits on
one, and more, frequently on both sides of the implement,
although in some of the examples obtained from Rehoboth
the depressions are so faintly defined as to escape the notice
of the inexperienced collector. These tools are certainly the
rudest types of aboriginal stone relics. They have been
selected from the ordinary cobble-stone, and as no attempt has
been made to alter their size or shape, they occur in an endless
variety of forms, and their condition is generally battered and
abrased with severe use.

Large quantities of flint chips and unfinished and broken
arrow heads, as well as numerous perfect specimens, are to be
found wherever a mound is to be seen, and lead to the opinion
that the manufacture of these implements was largely engaged
in by the camp dwellers. The prevailing form is confined to
the triangular variety without the notched base, which distin-
guishes those usually obtained from Pennsylvania and New
Jersey.

P'rom another mound I dug up a good specimen of a flak-
ing hammer or hand-axe, a broken pipe-stem of striped slate.

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showing a perforation as well drilled as if executed with a steel
instrument; a diminutive paint-pot, and a handful of bones.
The latter, although lying close together in a little heap,
have since been identified as those of two distinct mammals —
the fragment of a humerus and upper ends of two ulna of dog
and the vertebrce of a deer.

The hand-axe is a triangular shaped tool, wrought out of
sandstone, five inches long and four inches at the base, and
with the finger-pit of the previously described celt, but more
rudely pecked out, and its cutting edge presents a broad and
once sharp blade, admirably adapted for flaking other imple-
ments into shape. It possesses additional interest as showing
the hard usage to which it has been subjected, one side of the
blade being entirely battered off. >

As to the paint pot, I at first attributed no other value to it
than would attach to any ordinary fossil bivalve, out of which
it has been picked ; but a closer scrutiny revealed its identity,
and I have since ascertained that it has many counterparts in
the collection of the National Museum at Washington. It
would not require a great stretch of the imagination to discern
in the yellowish deposit in its interior particles of the pigment
that once served to adorn the face of the red man.

In conclusion, I have only to express the regret that I have
not been permitted to make as thorough an examination of
the remains of this ancient Indian village as their value to
archaeology certainly entitles them to. My regret is intensi-
fied because of the very near approach of that time when
there will be no further opportunity for research. Even as I
write embryo streets traverse its domain in every direction,
and in the space of perhaps only a few n^^onths lofty hotels
and comfortable cottages will rise upon the site of the Indian
wigwam, and every trace of the aboriginal character of the
spot will have disappeared before the march of improvement.

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